John 13:33-35
Jesus said, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Son of God
Savior
Sacrifice
Your love is Fierce and Forever
Abounding and Intimate
Generous, Goodness, and Grace
Fill me with your Spirit
Make me your love
It is your command
It is your way
It is your gift
It is You and your work
Yes, make me your witness
And yes, make me your will
But first and always, make me your love
Amen
Olive Wood carving of the Woman at the Well from Jerusalem. We brought this treasure back with us from our recent trip.
Sermon Series: There’s More to Life
Message 2 of 5: Woman of Samaria (Woman at the Well)
Scripture: John 4:3-26
Notes from a message offered Sunday, 3/31/19 at Trinity United Methodist Church, Sarasota Florida.
Rebekah Lyons testimony of God’s unconditional love. Rebekah is the mother of a child with Down syndrome.
The Woman at the Well
In the ancient world, your place as a woman was defined by your connection to a man:
Father, Brother, Husband, Son. We’re not just talking about social status- we’re talking access to what’s needed to survive.
Shelter from the extreme heat and cold of the desert
Food in your belly and clothes on your back
Loving relationships to weather you through the cruelties of life
Access to water on a regular basis
Where is her father? Most likely deceased.
Where is her brother, her sons, her children? Maybe she had none.
Where is the husband? Scripture tells us she’s had five husbands. Could it be in this harsh and cruel environment she’s lost five husbands to death? Maybe.
Could it be that because men in this time and culture controlled marriage and controlled divorce, could it be that she’s been thrown away five times? Told to go, you are not wanted.
The man she’s with now will not claim her legally. She has been shared and shamed, a survivor of cruelty and abuse.
She is an outcast in her community. We know this because in the ancient world went to the well based on their status. The most respected admired women would visit the well first, and she’s drawing her morning water at noon.
She is alone. Not in the company of the other women. Not enjoying their camaraderie and community.
This unnamed woman is barren of security. She’s been thrown away, driven away, shared and shamed, outcast, isolated.
She finds herself at Jacob’s well and today there’s a man there. He is Jewish. She is Samaritan. I imagine what is going through her mind and heart: How much more shame and disgrace am I going to get today? Jews and Samaritans don’t hang out. Am I going to hear from this man’s lips, “Half-breed! Heretic!”?
No. She hears from the lips of our Jesus respect. Good News.
They’re at a well, so Jesus uses the metaphor of water to share the Good News of Living Water, cleansing, refreshing, restoring, new birth. It is available to her.
He gives her a chance to reveal herself and she does. She’s honest and truthful. He recognizes it. The conversation could have gone any direction, at that point and she dives in deep theologically.
Jesus sees her, not what people label her. He sees how she’s been abused, her great need, her wounds, and yet he sees her giftedness. He sees her keen mind.
They begin a discussion like rabbi and to rabbi. Where do we worship and how do we worship and is there a place for me in worshiping God?
This is the longest theological discussion in the four Gospels. This unnamed woman of Samaria.
Deep down, deep down, deep down the question she is asking and the question each and every one of asks is: Does God want me and does God love me?
That is the core question. My community threw me out. They’ve shamed me and abused me. The Jews say I’m not worshiping in the right place in the right way. The Messiah is coming …
The core question: Does God want me and does God love me. The answer is always Yes! Always!
It is yes to the woman of Samaria and it is yes to us.
No matter what the world names us. No matter what circumstances we find ourselves in. No matter what we’ve done to survive. The answer is always Yes!
The love of God is unconditional love. The love of God comes without judgment. “God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:17)
This emptiness, this dryness, this wilderness, can only be quench by Jesus’s living water, Jesus’s saving love.
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine
I couldn’t earn it, and I don’t deserve it, still, You give Yourself away
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God – Chorus of Reckless Love by Cory Asbury
This week the Towery boys found it and claimed it for themselves. Rebekah Lyons saw it in the unconditional love of her son with Down syndrome. A great gift that he’s sharing. The woman at the well finds it in Jesus and shares it as well. She becomes one of the first evangelists. She runs back to the people who’ve been awful to her and says, “I think the Messiah is at the well.” They come, Jesus stays with them for days and many are saved.
Closing Prayer from Ephesians 3
Repetition of the word love
17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Insert your name or someone else’s name as a prayer of blessing that you/they would know the unconditional love of God and place their trust in Jesus as their Leader and Forgiver (Lord and Savior).
Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen ___________. Fill ___________’s soul with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in his/her heart. May love be the rich soil where ________’s life takes root. May it be the bedrock where ___________’s life is founded, so that together with all of Your people, he/she will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God may Your fullness flood through __________’s entire being. Now to the God who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us, to Him be all glory in the church and in Jesus the Anointed from this generation to the next, forever and ever. Amen.
It’s our Tradition at Trinity, Sarasota to offer couples the opportunity to renew their wedding vows the Sunday before Saint Valentine’s Day. Click Here for the liturgy we use.
Testimonies of the love between a couple, between friends, between a mother and son.
Joy Voyles quote: Chris is trying to keep under control while caring for his mom. It has been very hard on him. What a beautiful creation God blessed Nancy with. Though the time has been stressful for both Chris and Nancy, it also has allowed one on one time for them to share, pray and bond even more… maybe that was a blessing in disguise if you can call “pain” a blessing. Although, as I think about it… the pain of childbirth is a blessing… you reap the reward of a beautiful newborn in your arms and heart to love forever… Could it be the pain of leaving your body and moving into the arms of our Lord is a blessing of love to last thru eternity…
Song of Solomon 8:5-7 5 Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?
1. Coming up from the wilderness
Wilderness of the time before we know Christ
We wander in the desolation. Then we accept God’s love, are buried with Christ in baptism and we come up out of the wilderness. We are raised to new life.
Wilderness of an awful time in our lives
dry, barren, desolate, deadly. Christ is will us. Christ helps us to come through and come up out of the wilderness. We are raised to new life.
Wilderness of life this side of heaven.
Like the Hebrew slaves in Exodus, we cross the wilderness of this life to the promised land of heaven. We come up, raised to new life, eternal life
2. Leaning upon our Beloved Christ
Why do you lean?
For strength because you are weak
For support because the journey is long
For steadying because the footing is unsure
Because you just want to be near the one you love, your beloved
Charles Spurgeon Quote, Adapted
Beloved, there is no part of the pilgrimage of a saint in which we can afford to walk in any other way but in the way of leaning. … at the first, and at the last, still leaning, still leaning upon Christ Jesus; ay, and leaning more and more heavily upon Christ the older we grow.
Under the apple tree, I awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you; there she who bore you was in labor.
Consider the details, the specifics, the intimacy with which Jesus knows us
Knows us within our mother’s wombs
Knows us at our first breath
Knows the hairs on our head, our every experience, the deepest longing of our heart
6 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;
A Seal
Makes an impression
Ensures something is real, authentic
Reminds us the reality is binding. There’s a permanence to commitment, a sense of security
Jesus desires to be the seal on heart (call to be) and the seal on arm (call to do)
for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.
1. What makes death strong?
Death comes for all people, just as Christ comes for all people
There’s a permanence to death. Total. Irreversible. The same is true for Christ’s love which is even stronger than death. Christ’s love overcomes sin and death and the grave with sacrificial love and resurrection love.
2. The Passion of Christ’s Love
The unrelenting longing and desire of Christ is to have an intimate, saving relationship with us
In his passion (healthy jealousy) Jesus doesn’t want to see anything come between us and our relationship with him.
Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. 7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.
Christ’s passionate love is compared to fire
Fire has great power
It is alive
It is useful
It is unchanging, unquenchable, unstoppable
Nothing can put it out. Not even wave after wave of trouble. Not night after night of darkness. Not even death.
If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.
All people are made in the image of God. In this God gives us the ability to love and be loved. Love cannot be bought or sold; it is not a piece of merchandise. Only objects can be bought and sold. Love is not an object. People are never objects.
This is why human trafficking, pornography, and prostitution are scorned. They are outside God’s will because love and people are objectified.
Love is of infinite value. We cannot buy it or earn it.
Love of God in Christ Jesus
Saves us from the wilderness
Something we lean upon always
More intimate than our first breath
Real, Authentic, Makes a lasting impression
Strong, Fierce, Passionate
Unchanging, Unquenchable, Unstoppable
Of Infinite Value
Offered to you as a gift
Accept the gift of God’s love
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I’m excited to now offer mp3’s of my Sunday messages. A huge thank you to Sean and my brothers and sisters at Trinity United Methodist Church, Sarasota for all their help in making this possible. If you’re ever in Sarasota, please drop by for worship Sundays at 9am or 10:30am, or join us live on our Facebook page at 9am Sundays, or drop by during the week for a chat or small group. You and those you love are always welcome.
Divine One, you know us and call us by name.
You search for us, drawing us to your breast when we are strangers and aliens.
We are each and all your beloved.
You name us friend. You name us family.
We wonder and marvel to have as our Lover the Creator and Master of all that exists.
Our Beloved is Love itself.
You know us so well, and love us all the more.
Every longing, every breath, the number of hairs on our head.
We run into your embrace, overwhelmed by your intimacy and grace.
Sermon Series – Jacob, Punk to Patriarch Jacob’s journey to faith and accepting his place in God’s plan is full of schemes, betrayal, and family dysfunction. Yet, in the midst of the mess, God remains steadfast- offering relationship, provision, purpose, and new life. In Jacob’s story, we see our own mess and God’s saving grace for us as well.
Something is going on in Jacob’s life. He’s learning to love and sacrifice for another person. He’s gaining an honest work ethic. When he’s deceived by Laban he takes the high road, maybe for the first time in his life. He could have killed Laban, he could have rejected Leah, he could have run home taking Rachel with him. Instead, Jacob stays husband to Leah (who’s been cruelly used by Laban) and works another seven years for Rachel. Could Jacob be connecting his pain to the pain he caused his brother and father? Could he be learning empathy as well as love? Could it be, when Jacob awoke from his dream, God also awakened him from the selfish, manipulative nightmare of his early years? – Lisa Degrenia <><
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I’m excited to now offer mp3’s of my Sunday messages. A huge thank you to Leon and my brothers and sisters at Trinity United Methodist Church, Sarasota for all their help in making this possible. If you’re ever in Sarasota, please drop by for worship Sundays at 9am or 10:30am, or drop by during the week for a chat or small group. You and those you love are always welcome.
John 13:33-35
Happy Trinity Sunday! – Lisa <><
